Book Read Free

Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos

Page 33

by Hoffmann, Peter M.


  Regression toward the mean, 55–56

  Regulation, 231–233, 235–237

  Regulatory networks, 235–237

  Renaissance, 18

  Rennin, 112

  Repair enzymes, 64, 117

  Replication, 202–205

  Repressor protein, 236

  Reset step

  ATP hydrolysis in myosin V and, 186–187

  in kinesin-1, 181

  for molecular machines, 155–158

  Reversibility, 133–136

  Reversible machine, 158

  Ribosome, 207–209

  evolution of, 219–220

  Ritter, Johann Wilhelm, 36

  RNA, 202, 205–207

  as enzyme, 219–220

  translation and, 207–209

  RNA polymerase, 206–207, 208, 209, 236

  Rohrer, Heinrich, 95

  Russell, Bertrand, 244–245

  Rutherford, Ernest, 2

  Saint Augustine, 15

  Saint Thomas Aquinas, 16

  Sakamoto, Takeshi, 182–187

  Scanning probe microscopes (SPMs), 94, 95–96

  Scanning tunneling microscope (STM), 95–96

  Schleiden, Matthias Jakob, 33

  Schlichta, Paul, 92n

  Scholasticism, 16

  Schrödinger, Erwin, 6, 63–66, 116, 214

  Schrödinger’s cat, 128

  Schwann, Theodor, 33

  Science (journal), 236

  Scientific revolution, 21

  Searson, Peter, 2

  Second law of thermodynamics, 76–80

  free energy and, 82

  Maxwell on, 126

  Maxwell’s demon and, 128–129, 131–132

  molecular machines and, 127–128

  molecular storm and, 144

  nanoscale systems and, 134–136

  Smoluchowski’s trap door, 129–130

  as statistical law, 130

  violation of, 128–132

  vital force and, 136–137

  The Secret (Byrne), 3, 11

  The Secret (film), 10n

  Self-assembly, 100–115

  energy vs. entropy and, 108–110

  of micelles, 104–105, 106, 107

  of snowflakes, 101–103

  Sellers, Jim, 183–184

  Shape

  of molecular machines, 146

  myosin II and cellular, 187

  of protein, 113–115

  Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 34–35

  Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 34

  SHRIMP, 175

  Signaling pathways, 235–237

  Sisyphus, 156–158

  Smoluchowski, Marian von, 129–130

  on chance and laws of probability, 133

  simplified version of Maxwell’s demon, 138

  Snowflakes, formation of, 82–83, 101–103

  Sodium-potassium pump, 212

  Soul, 12–14, 16

  Descartes and, 20

  La Mettrie’s denial of, 24–25

  Spacey, Kevin, 48

  SPMs. See Scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) Spudich, Jim, 175–176

  Stahl, Georg Ernst, 29

  Stars, 85

  Statistical mechanics, 3, 60–61, 68–69

  molecular motion and, 163

  Schrödinger and, 65, 69

  Statistics, 53–56

  Steam engines, as analogy for life, 25n

  Stevenson, John, 28

  Stiffness, of molecule-thick water layers, 118–120

  STM. See Scanning tunneling microscope (STM)

  Stoics, 15, 60

  The Strategy of Life (Lenoir), 32n

  Subba-Rao, Venkatesh, 101

  Supernovae, 85

  Surface-to-volume ratio, in nanoscale, 98–99

  Sutton, Walther, 61

  Swerve, 14

  Systems biology, 235–237

  Szilard, Leo, 131

  Targeted drug delivery, 93–94

  Teleomechanism, 32–34

  Temperature

  free energy and, 80–81

  molecular motor speed and, 167–168

  motion of kinesin and, 179

  self-assembly and, 109

  Thales, 13

  The Theory of Heat (Maxwell), 126

  Theory of probability, 48–50

  “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” (Feynman), 91–92, 93

  Thermal energy, 70, 73, 74

  Thermal noise (thermal motion), 72, 100

  cellular activity and, 65

  chaos and, 145–146, 168, 205, 226

  molecular machines and, 122, 123–124, 174

  mutations and, 225–226

  Thermodynamic equilibrium, 85

  Thermodynamics, 60

  biology and, 30

  first law of, 73

  second law of (see Second law of thermodynamics)

  This Is Biology (Mayr), 229

  Thompson, Benjamin (Count Rumford), 29, 70

  Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth, role of chance in history of life, 7, 57–58, 60, 224–225

  Threonine, 151–152

  L-Threonine deaminase, 151–152, 153

  Thymine, 201, 202

  Tight coupling, 159–162, 166, 167

  Timaeus (Plato), 26

  Timoféeff, Nikolai, 62, 63, 64

  TIMP-2, 233–234

  TIRF, 175

  Topoisomerase, 203, 204

  Tourney, Christopher, 92n

  Transactions of the Scientific Society of Göttingen (journal), 62

  Transcription, 202, 205–207, 208

  Transfer RNA (tRNA), 207–209

  Transistor, 122

  Transition state, in chemical reactions, 146–147, 148

  Translation, 202, 207–209

  tRNA synthetases, 208–209

  Tropomyosin, 189

  Tunneling, 95–96 21 (film), 48

  Universe, 243–246

  Uracil, 205–206

  UTP, 206

  The Vengeful Faculty (La Mettrie), 23

  Vesalius, Andreas, 19

  Vesalius, Basilius, 18

  Vesicles, 106, 107, 182

  Vibrational energy, ATP/ADP conversion and, 159

  Vinci, Leonardo da, 49

  Virchow, Rudolf, 33

  Virtual cells, 236

  Viruses, self-assembly of, 110

  Viscosity, 98

  Vital forces, 32–33

  experiments disproving necessity of, 38–40

  explanation of life and, 60

  impossibility of perpetuum mobile and, 137

  See also Vitalism/vitalists

  “Vitalisms and Animalisms” (Monod), 58–59

  Vitalism/vitalists, 7, 12–13, 14, 15, 238–239

  chance vs. necessity and, 60

  conservation of energy and repudiation of, 36–41

  discrediting of, 60

  epigenesis and, 31–32

  Galen and, 17

  irritability and, 34–36

  teleomechanism and, 32–34

  Voltage, across the membrane, 194

  Voltaire, 21, 58

  Waiting state, 177–178

  Walker, John E., 195

  Walking transport motors

  kinesin-1, 176–181, 232

  myosin V, 176, 182–187, 189, 192

  Wallace, Alfred Russell, 41

  Watch, as analogy for living organism, 214–216

  Water molecules

  cooperativity and, 117–120

  hydrogen bonds and, 110–111

  Watson, James, 6, 201–202

  Wave mechanics, 63

  Weinberg, Steven, 241

  Weizman Institute of Science, 219

  “What I Believe” (Russell), 244–245

  What Is Life? (Schrödinger), 6, 63–64, 225

  Xenophanes, 13

  X-synthase, 171

  Yanagida, Toshio, 167, 179

  Young’s modulus, 98

  Zeno of Citium, 15

  Zimmer, Karl, 62, 63, 64

   

  Hoffmann, Peter M., Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos

 

 

 


‹ Prev